


Days like Dominos

by lagazzraladra



Series: Astra Verse [2]
Category: Generation Kill, Star Trek
Genre: Alien Character(s), F/M, Post canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:24:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagazzraladra/pseuds/lagazzraladra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray shows up at Walt's apartment at 5 o’clock am one morning. It’s a clear night, and the air is crisp and cool against Walt’s skin, but Ray looks like she’s freezing. He silently takes in her slumped posture, the way she's rubbing her hand against her tired eyes, and how it looks like she might suddenly collapse across his doorstep. He lets her in wordlessly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days like Dominos

**Author's Note:**

> so, when i was still working on ad astra per aspera, i got A LOT of ideas for little post-canon fics that i could write. this is one of them. title is from "lakeside view apartments suite" by the mountain goats, which i suggest listening to while reading this. enjoy.

 

**5 days**

Walt goes through a shit-ton of tests upon getting back to the Pendelton- from psychoanalysis to a physical examination by the CMO- but he’s eventually released from the med ward after a few days, all his tests coming back negative for whatever the fuck it was they were looking for.

He goes back to his cabin, the one that he hasn’t used in a few weeks, to find that all of his belongings are covered in a fine layer of dust. _I guess no one was cleaning for us heroes while we were gone_ , Walt thinks. _Maybe they didn’t think we were going to come back at all._

Stop.

He packs up his clothes, his pictures, his books. The Pendelton will be docking back at Earth in a week. He lies on his bed and closes his eyes and tries not to dream.

-

 

**15 days**

The trip back to the docking station is a blur. The shuttle trip back to Earth is a blur. The train ride to Walt’s apartment complex is a blur. Walt’s completely out of it until he finally gets the door to his shitty apartment in San Francisco to open. It looks the exactly the same as he left it, just dustier, dustier then his cabin on the Pendelton even.

He sets about cleaning it up and then putting all his stuff away. It takes him about two hours in total, and when he’s done he replicates himself some shitty beer and sits down on his shitty armchair and watches his shitty TV. There’s a program running on the news about peace talks on Markav IV, about how they’re progressing incredibly well.

Walt turns it off immediately, takes a swig of his beer, and abandons trying to watch TV in favor of lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling for two hours.

He doesn’t care anymore.

-

 

**5 months, 3 days**

Ray shows up at Walt's apartment at 5 o’clock am one morning.

It’s a clear night, and the air is crisp and cool against Walt’s skin, but Ray looks like she’s freezing. He silently takes in her slumped posture, the way she's rubbing her hand against her tired eyes, and how it looks like she might suddenly collapse across his doorstep.

He lets her in wordlessly.

She shuffles past the doorstep, dragging her suitcase behind her.

“Took a bus,” she says. Walt nods.

“I’ll get some blankets for the couch.” Walt walks to his bedroom, takes out some extra sheets, and smells them, to make sure they’re actually clean. Then, he takes an extra pillow off of his bed and moves back to the living room.

Ray’s sitting down in his armchair, hands folded neatly in her lap. “Thanks,” she says, standing up and taking the sheets out of Walt’s hands. She folds them neatly over the couch and when she’s done she looks at Walt. “Sorry about waking you up.”

Walt doesn’t sleep anymore, but he doesn’t say that. He figures that Ray knows that already anyway, and with the dark circles Ray’s got blooming under her eyes, Walt figures she’s having the same kind of trouble. He doesn’t mention it though, doesn’t say anything except a simple, “Goodnight” before he walks back into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He leans against it with a sigh and rubs his hands across his face, taking a shaking breath.

It’s been five months.

-

 

**6 months, 12 days**

Ray sits at the kitchen table, scrolling through her PAAD.

Walt shuffles into the kitchen, still in his pajamas, and yawns, stretching his arms. “Do you want something to eat?” he asks, opening up a cabinet.

“Depends. Is it replicated or not?” jokes Ray, looking up from her PAAD.

Walt scratches the stubble on the side of his face, “Uh, I’ve got cereal? But I’ll have to replicate the milk.”

Ray hums, “That’s fine.”

Walt grabs the bowls and cereal out of his cabinet, and then goes to replicate the milk. Ray continues scrolling through whatever it is she’s looking at on her PAAD. He fills up the bowls, grabs some spoons out of a drawer, and then slides into a seat next to Ray.

“What are you looking at?” He asks around a bite of cereal.

“Classifieds,” Ray says, not even looking up. “Figured it was time I started pulling my weight around here. I’m sure you could use some help paying for the rent.”

Walt swallows, considers telling her that no, he doesn’t need help paying the rent, but decides against it. Instead, he pushes her bowl of cereal in front of her, nods, and says, “Okay. Here’s your breakfast.”

-

 

**8 months, 27 days**

Ray gets a job making guns for starships. She makes decent pay, decent enough pay that she’s able to invest in a new couch, once that pulls out into a bed.

 _Not like she’ll use it though,_ Walt thinks. He knows; he hears her at night, pacing and crying and talking to herself. He wants to tell her that he knows exactly how she feels, but the words just won’t come out.

-

 

**9 months, 13 days**

“Why are you here?” Walt asks, blunt and to the point. They’re eating dinner in the kitchen; it’s a pork roast that Ray made, it’s not replicated. She went out to the local supermarket and bought all the ingredients and everything.

Ray looks at him, jaw moving up and down like she’s trying to say something, except the words just won’t come out.

“ _Ray_ ,” Walt prompts.

She gets up, taking her plate with her, dumps the rest of her food into the trash, rinses her plate off, and puts into the dishwasher. She turns around, leaning against the counter, hands gripping its edge. Walt watches her chest rise and fall with each breath. She takes a step forward and Walt tenses in his seat. Another step, and she raises her hand up to Walt’s face, strokes her finger behind his ear before tilting his head up and-

She kisses him.

“Oh,” Walt breathes, when they both break away for air. “ _Oh._ ”

-

 

**11 months, 6 days**

Ray’s got a day off, so Walt goes to the supermarket planning on buying fresh food for dinner; a nice change from all the replicated shit they’ve been eating lately. He fills a cart up with as much food as he thinks he can afford, and carries it back to the car in two trips, turning down a cashier’s offer to help him.

When he comes home Ray’s holding an opened letter in her hand.

“You re-upped,” she says.

Walt drops his bags at the door, quickly shuts it behind him, clears his throat, and asks “What ship?”

She doesn’t meet his eyes, “The Pendelton. Espera’s your Captain.”

Walt rubs the back of his neck, doesn’t say anything.

“Ok,” she says, sounding like she’s holding back tears. “Ok, I get it. I know how it feels. It’s fine.”

But Walt can tell it isn’t.

-

 

**11 months, 7 days**

She’s gone the next morning and Walt didn’t even notice her get out of bed.

There’s a moment of panic where he feels like he’s back on Markav IV, like he’s missed his shift, like the weight and warmth of Ray’s body is missing from next to him because she’s been hit and she’s dead or bleeding out on the floor next to him and he just can’t see an-

Stop.

Walt gets out of bed on shaking limbs. The only thing she’s left behind is a note, thumbtacked to his door, that simply reads, “Don’t.” He tears it off, crumples it up, and throws it out. Then he punches a hole through his wall.

They only got six months.

-

 

**1 year, 2 months, 8 days**

The Pendelton runs short missions; only one or two months long each. Walt does three of them in a row before he earns leave. He’s got two weeks off and is considering visiting his mother, but he knows he’s gotta check in on his apartment first, make sure the place is clean, the rent is paid, and that no one’s broken in and stolen his shit.

He fiddles with the keys for a moment before he opens the door and Ray’s there, sitting on his couch watching TV, and eating some cereal. Sitting there like she’s always been there. She looks at Walt, eyes moving up and down his body, critical. Walt drops his bags at the door and quickly shuts it behind him.

She doesn’t say she’s sorry, just takes Walt by his hands and leads him to the bedroom, wordlessly. She fucks him that night- loving and carefully, just teetering on the edge of roughness- and Walt looks at his ceiling and for once doesn’t hate the fact that he can’t see the stars.

-

 

**1 year, 5 months, 3 days**

It’s Ray’s birthday.

“I filled out a Starfleet application today,” she says, looking straight across the table at Walt.

He drops his fork onto his plate, looks at her. 

“I requested the Pendelton.” A smile breaks out across her face. Walt’s breath catches in his throat and he’s out of his chair in a single movement, crossing the small distance between the two of them and swooping Ray up into his arms.

He presses his nose into her hair, “Thank you.”

“You know, I’m not guaranteed a spot,” she says, hands stroking against the hairs at the nape of his neck.

“You’ll get it.”

Ray smiles and wriggles her way out of Walt’s arms to place a kiss on his forehead, his nose, his mouth. She leans her forehead against his and closes her eyes, just letting them breathe together: _in out in out in out._

They bring blankets and pillows out onto their balcony. They let the chilled night air wash over them both. Ray kisses him some more, soft and needy. No one stares sleeplessly at the ceiling that night.

**-**

 

**3 years, 10 months, 31 days**

They’re standing next to each other on the viewing deck of the USS Pendelton, hands resting against the railing, staring out at space.

“I’m glad you came,” Walt says.

Ray lays her hand across Walt’s and smiles.

Silence.


End file.
